A superficial reading of the political history of the United States
supports the view that American
politics is anti-intellectual and that
American government is a product
of the efforts of "practical" men.

Certainly the founding fathers
were practical men. In writing and
then defending the Declaration of Independence, they took practical
political action -- knowing that the consequence of failure was almost
certain execution as traitors.

American politics is idealistic at the same time, and the reported
division between politics and idealism is more fancied than real.

The failure to associate politics with the philosophical and intellectual arena of ideas has sometimes arisen from the very absence of
genuine ideological conflict between men of ideas and men of action
in American political life. Certainly philosophers, historians, and
men of ideas were accepted as associates and advisers of politicians
in the earliest days of our history.

G. K. Chesterton, in his book What I Saw in America, published
in 1922, said that

America is the only nation in the world that is founded on a
creed. That creed is set forth with dogmatic and even theological lucidity in the Declaration of Independence; perhaps
the only piece of practical politics that is also theoretical politics and also great literature.

The creed to which he referred was expressed in the Declaration
in these words:

We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are
created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with
certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty,
and the Pursuit of Happiness. . . .

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